


i would die for you (in secret)

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: A Drabble From Nanowrimo 2020, Allison Likes To Sing, Drabble, F/M, Season/Series 02, Soft Luther Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: Lila rumors Allison, and it isterrible.A missing moment from the end of season 2.title from taylor swift: peace
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	i would die for you (in secret)

**Author's Note:**

> Still soft for Allison/Luther. Still not over how much I love them.

He pushes life into her lungs and begs her to breathe, to fight it, to come back to him, to stay, to breathe _Allison goddammit_ , and she would laugh at his begging for her if she could think of anything else besides the vice around her neck, her own body's betrayal, in a way that she'd never known.

It had never been possible, to understand what it was like to be rumored. No one ever remembered, and no one would have told her afterwards, anyway, given that they were almost always dead. Or incapacitated. Or decapitated, which made talking especially tricky. She'd asked Klaus once if he would ask a victim, but he'd only blinked at her through bleary, red-rimmed eyes and started humming some disco tune from the early 70s and she hadn't asked again, knowing that just living was enough of a cost for her brother, and knowing that even asking crossed some sort of line. 

The siblings, their unlikely band of mutants, tended to cross lines all the time - but not this time, not Luther, who is begging for her forgiveness even as she sits up, even as her throat loosens and she inhales as much air as is superhumanly possible before starting to break down into a coughing fit. Her vocal cords may have healed, but they are not what they once were.

(She can't sing anymore, and she'd never thought she would miss it, but if Claire were here, she couldn't sing lullabies to her daughter, and if they were home, she couldn't belt out anything at karaoke with Diego, and if they survived this - which was starting to seem unlikely - she couldn't do a duet with Vanya on her violin and her crooning away, something low and lovely and achingly hopeful).

Lila had whispered that rumor right back to her and the power had magnified on rebound, had flooded her eyes with white and her senses with shock. It was like every neuron in her brain had been dunked into a cool ice bath and then dragged out into the air to wither from the exposure and the heat that the contrast brings. It was like sliding into a bubble bath where the choice to drown had been made already and all she had to do was witness it. It was like an urge, an impulse, but one that bypassed every rational, reasoning part of her brain in favor for the primate brain below - breathe, sleep, eat, fuck - and it ripped the innate knowing of how to do those things from her.

She'd said she would never rumor again, time and time again she'd said it - but she'd done it anyway.

Some part of her wonders if, now that she knows, if she'll stop for good this time.

Some part of her knows she will do anything to save her family - and if that means using the curse she was born with, the curse that surfaced as three-year old Allison repeating something she read in a book from the library ("I heard a rumor that you made me cupcakes," she'd whispered to her mother, to the robot woman who was the only one who'd shown her what perfect love and devotion could look like, to the one who'd smiled at her and pinched her cheeks and refused, so then she'd asked her father at dinner - who had immediately stood and descended into the kitchen, resurfacing an hour later to present seven flabbergasted children with a beautifully decorated tray of chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing) - she would fucking do it, over and over again.

To save the man kneeling in front of her, flushed to the tips of his ears as he avoids her gaze, as he holds her like she might flicker and disappear from time altogether, like she'd almost died again - she would do _anything_.

"Allison," his breath is ragged against her ear, chest heaving and he is choking on something and she almost panics before she realizes it is just tears, "you've got to stop almost dying in front of me."

She presses a firm kiss to his cheek. "I'll do my best," she chirps, holding him close for as long as she dares. "Now, come on. Let's go find the others."


End file.
